• A Tifa survey released Wednesday ranked Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki as the top CS with the most number of local activities in 2023.
• The survey showed that Kindiki had 192 local engagements last year; 74 of the activities were within Nairobi county.
Image: PCS
This past week, Tifa released a survey on the activities of President William Ruto’s Cabinet in 2023.
The survey released on Wednesday identified counties most visited, most travelled Cabinet Secretaries and their preferred destinations.
The survey showed the CSs have been giving Western, Nyanza and North Eastern a wide berth in their local visits.
Overall, the Interior CS had the highest number of activities in the country followed by his counterparts in Labour, Lands, Health and Prime Cabinet Secretary.
“A staggering 54 per cent of the CSs concentrated their activities in Nairobi, totaling 1,377 engagements,” the report said.
From the survey, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki was ranked as the top CS with the most number of local activities in 2023.
The survey showed Kindiki had 192 local engagements during the period under review. Out of these, 74 of the activities were within Nairobi county.
The Interior CS was followed by Florence Bore (Labour) with 185 activities and Zachary Njeru (Lands) who had 165 engagements.
Cabinet Secretaries Alfred Mutua (Tourism) and Aden Duale (Defence) were ranked as the CSs with the least number of engagements locally.
Mutua had only 23 local activities 17 of which were in Nairobi, Duale had 62 (44 in Nairobi) while Ezekiel Machogu (Education) had 72 where 44 were outside the capital.
Mutua was ranked as the most travelled government executive abroad.
Mutua, previously in charge of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs ministry, was followed by Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria, formerly of Trade and Industrialisation ministry.
“Given the international nature of his ministerial portfolios, extensive travel is an inherent expectation,” the report said on Mutua’s travel.
Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs CS Salim Mvurya was third followed by National Treasury’s Njuguna Ndung’u and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi came in fifth.
The survey said there was no documented evidence of foreign travel linked to the roles of Kindiki and Machogu in 2023.
From the survey, it emerged that Europe was the top travel destination for the Cabinet secretaries between December and January, 2024.
The report placed Europe at 24 per cent followed by the rest of Africa excluding East Africa at 20 per cent.
A total of 2,741 activities by the Cabinet secretaries were analysed out of which 203 were foreign travel.
"A reliable indicator of the impact of these international travel would be the resulting economic ties and partnerships between Kenya and destination countries," the report states.
There was a total 48 trips to Europe, 40 to other parts of Africa, North and South America (36) accounting for 18 per cent.
The report comes at a time the government is implementing austerity measures to cut on its expenditure by reducing foreign travel for senior officials.